Cultural and Contemporary Issues in Marketing - High street Retail

 A Brief History of Retail to Present Day 

High street retail as we know it today has its origins in the late 19th century continuing to develop in the very early 20th century forming the type of retail sector that we are more familiar with today. About this time an American arrived in the UK to transform shopping into what is commonly known today as retail therapy, Harry Gordon Selfridge opened his first department store in 1909. In doing so he single-handedly revolutionised shopping in the UK, bringing some transformational marketing concepts including, relocation of the lucrative beauty and perfume dept to front and centre of the first floor of the store where products were not hidden in cabinets but openly available for people to try before purchasing.

Other innovations included window displays, live music and interactive displays. Marketeers today still use these techniques with evidence suggesting store atmospherics can positively manipulate consumers responses including, lighting, smells and music. The 1960s heralded change with consumers developing an appetite for cheap and disposable high fashion prompting several brands to open their own stores such as Topshop, Dorothy Perkins and Evans.

At this time America shopping malls (known as shopping centres in the UK) were starting to become popular, central locations housing many shops that shared communal facilities such as

toilets and washrooms and seating areas. The aim was to create a social and cultural experience where people could meet and make an activity of their shopping. Some of the more modern centres of today have food halls with a range of dining choices, ice rinks and cinemas all in the one location. This concept went global, with shopping centres appearing in the UK in the 1960s. Large complexes often housing up to 100 retail outlets, they became catalysts for the development of unused suburban land and their rise coincided with the rise of car ownership. Council planning departments favour for out-of-town development pre mid 1990s meant developers locked up the land resulting in continued creation of such commercial centres even after planners refocused their favour back to high street development. At the same time city planners were cracking down on congestion measures and increasing parking prices putting further pressure on high street retailers. The central proximity of a large numbers of brands, large spaces for retailers, plenty free parking, combined with eateries and cheaper rents for retailers was the first nail in the coffin of the high street. Then the 2008 financial crisis seen the economy collapsing with retail sales falling to 35-year lows at the time. The resultant recession that followed was another nail in the coffin of high street retail, as the recession started to bite many retailers closed their doors to be replaced by tanning salons, betting shops and charity shops painting a less than attractive picture for consumers to visit.

Across that time retail power has shifted, on top of the migration of retailers to shopping malls we have seen the rise of one stop shops. In such stores you can buy almost anything, such power is leading the charge in retail driving down prices based on what they are prepared to pay suppliers and manufactures. You will probably remember the UK news story about supermarkets

driving down the price farmers could charge them for milk, increasing their own profits by attracting large numbers of shoppers to their competitive stores, again crushing the small high street shops. Walmart is one example of this shift, where they have been #1 in Deloitte annual report of the worlds top 250 retailers for over 20 years. Since 2012 a comparison of online versus brick-and-mortar retail sales show that online considerably outperformed the other with an understandable spike during the peak of the pandemic but as we start to come back to normal both online and offline were tied at a growth rate of 14% in 2021. This can most probably be linked to people flocking back to the social shopping experience. As for the impact of the covid pandemic on retail, the UK government office of national statistics states that the volume of UK retail sales fell by 1.9% in 2020 which is the largest fall since records began.

Woke Advertising

Woke advertising or wokevertising is something new in recent years for marketing teams and advertising agencies to deal with. Woke refers to socially aware advertising that demonstrates an understanding of what is going on in the wider community. It could be argued that some consumers perceive the scope to further include culture and politics as well as social trends and that the reach extends globally and not just community wide.

High street beauty retailer Superdrug carried out a survey which highlighted that “1/3 of people across the black and mixed heritage community don’t feel represented when it comes to shopping for health and

beauty products on the high street.”  The survey highlighted that 86% of people believed that beauty retailers should make their campaigns more inclusive. Whilst 84% believed a beauty campaign created specifically for people of colour would be a positive step, 80% thought beauty retailers should host more events for black people. The survey sparked many ideas on how high street beauty retailers can positively accommodate people of colour, with many participants agreeing that staff should be better trained to give advice on makeup for deeper skin tones and that a more diverse representation in their staff would increase their intention to purchase.  

Superdrug used its findings to launch its ‘Shades of You’ campaign, the aim of this campaign was to promote a more diverse and inclusive range, with Superdrug introducing 110 products including 55 new darker toned foundations. They also consulted with leading make-up brands L’Oréal, Revlon and Maybelline resulting is the release of a further 23 shades.

Whether it is race, feminism, LGBT or some or social movement there is the potential for a backlash from consumers if marketeers, advertisers or companies get it wrong. Woke-washing describes the practice of companies presenting themselves as woke with no substance behind the image. For example, a company claiming to promote support for diversity across age, gender, and race whilst their employee hiring policy and employee representation do not reflect this view. Many attempts at woke advertising have backfired and companies can find themselves and/or products cancelled. Cancel culture is “the practice or tendency of engaging in mass cancelling, a way of expressing disapproval and exerting social pressure” . This is usually executed on social media platforms. One example of an Ad going wrong was from Hyundai UK with the tagline their “cars run so clean, you can’t use it to poison yourself in the

garage” this joke on suicide understandably, did not go down well and Hyundai apologised for the error.

Even when brands appear to successfully deliver a woke advertisement it can be deemed to be negative by some. Ravi Amaratunga Hitchcock is an award-winning, BAFTA-nominated executive creative director and executive producer and he finds such practices that assume sensitive social issues can be resolved using marketing not only callous but sometimes offensive, furthermore he thinks it can be dangerous and that brands and corporations should deeply reflect on other ways they can genuinely make meaningful contributions to the world around them. This highlights the difficult balance required by marketing teams when addressing such modern cultural attitudes with promotional material.

 

Covid Highlights the importance of online Presence

 

The covid_19 pandemic wreaked havoc across the globe in 2020/21 in terms of people’s health with over 6 million deaths recorded. The impact on global retail was also substantial with retail sales falling off a cliff as mentioned earlier in this post, supply chains were disrupted, and thousands of people lost jobs as 17,500 high street retail outlets in the UK closed their doors for good with the pandemic massively accelerating consumers transition to online retail. Other organisations and corporations boomed because of this such as Amazon, Zoom, eBay and other internet-based businesses. A third of UK consumers

believe the changes made to their shopping habits will be permanent with 45% having now purchased something online that they previously only ever purchased in store. If there is one issue this has highlighted for marketing departments, it is the importance of establishing a good online presence and that includes good digital marketing teams. This online presence won’t be a replacement for bricks and mortar but another retail distribution channel, thus offering consumers omni channel options that provide the versatility the modern shopper has come to expect. For example, with the rise of click and collect option, consumers can order online and collect instore or at lockers in the train station or petrol station.

 

Quoting Lewis Keegan, founder of online training site skillscouter.com “One of the top challenges facing retailers in 2021 is the fact that they have to take the step and transition to conduct their business online or else, they will be left behind by those who have stores both onsite and online. We are in the golden age of technology and those who wouldn’t be able to go with the flow of the current will slowly sink to the bottom of the pyramid.” Any digital marketing team needs to be sufficiently skilled to ensure the retailers online presence works effectively, reaches the intended market and achieves an optimised conversion rate, something that can be measured using analytics and metrics. Product pages will need to be well constructed making proper use of search engine optimisation best practices and have all the necessary information required by consumers including high quality video and images. Recommendations on similar products should be offered to consumers to improve conversation rates and try and avoid customers going elsewhere. Finally, any website should undergo traffic analytics and SEO optimisation reviews to ensure good results at the top or at least on the first page of google searches.

 

If firms are looking for mutually satisfying connections with consumers, they need to develop digital relationships through promotions that emphasize co-creation of content and meaning, therefore word of mouth is extremely useful and whilst retailers have always talked to customers the social media platforms of today lets consumers respond. It is argued that for retailers to effectively harness the advantages

offered by the internet, social media platforms must be adopted as a communication channel to send information to customers and connect with stakeholders which should ultimately generate sales. Social media users generate electronic word of mouth by publishing content that includes their opinions on brands and products, such user generated content has proven to be more effective than advertising. Therefore, Influencers with large followings in social media can be very valuable to retailers when they are signed up to promote brands.

 

Hedonistic experience

As previously mentioned, the large shift to online retail by consumers during the pandemic has created some behavioural changes that will most probably be permanent ones. Consequently, this cultural shift along with ever increasing online retail volumes will mean there is going to be less footfall in the bricks and mortar stores going forward. This presents an issue for marketing teams in trying to attract consumers into their retail stores to purchase goods. There are some who claim covid never caused the shift to online but only accelerated it and that eCommerce companies including Amazon and eBay were already driving the change. The physical stores will remain, but consumer’s needs, and expectations have shifted, and online shopping still has the limitation preventing consumers experiencing the brand using all their senses before buying. Thus, in-store purchases are still perceived as emotional experiences. One such example is beauty products which are available to purchase online, however

customers prefer to go into a store to sample and try out the products for various reasons included in that is makeup, shades are difficult to judge on screen and textures cannot be felt nor foundation coverage demonstrated. Also, the instore experience provides a makeup professional to demonstrate how to apply the product and answer any questions.

Walgreen Boots Alliance is a retail powerhouse in the top 10 of the 250 Global powers of Retailing report by Deloitte, they own Boots UK Pharmacy and Beauty. They have recognised the importance of experiential marketing and announced the investment and launch of 30 new beauty halls on high streets across the UK in September 2021. The beauty halls will offer an exciting range of products with 65 new lines added since the start of lockdown. Boots will also add Over 100 new Boots Beauty Specialist roles taking the total number to over 700, the specialist’s role is to provide specialised beauty and skincare advice to customers for free in store. They are fully trained on all products as well as empathy, that training is based on brain science and human emotions. Boots UK Managing Director Seb James made the following statement on the launch “We are so pleased to launch even more reinvented beauty halls on UK high streets, furthering our position as the UK’s number one for beauty. While our online sales continue to grow, the in-store experience is still hugely important, which is why we have continued to invest in our new-look beauty halls throughout the pandemic and beyond. As we are now out of lockdown and life is starting to look more normal, I am confident that our beautiful new beauty halls will help to drive more footfall into Boots as well as to local high streets more broadly.”

 

A recent trend in experiential marketing is the concept of a pop-up stores which are designed purely for the purpose of consumer experience, giving customers the chance to become immersed in their favourite products in a multi-sensory environment.

Such stores are temporary spaces as the name suggests hence the costs are low, so marketing departments can generate consumer excitement whilst also introducing new brands and testing out creative ideas. Companies have complete control of this environment from design to location. Such pop up stores are almost always one-time events so with the correct PR and use of social media influencers referenced previously a lot of hype can be generated attracting media, thus enabling publicity for your brand.

 

Earlier it was highlighted how important the social media communication channel was for marketeers as it allowed customers to easily communicate with retailers. In 2011 IKEA used social media to select 100

winners from 100000 people in a Facebook group with the name “I wanna have a sleepover in IKEA”. These lucky winners were to take part in what some people are calling “the world's best practice example of the sort of experiential marketing that will define the future of retail.” These randomly selected winners were granted a cost-free sleep over in an IKEA store in Essex

 

The company went to great lengths to ensure consumers had a great experience, including allowing people to select their own bed, bedding and pillows, the provision of goody bags containing snacks towels and slippers. They were also treated to entertainment with movies and reading of bedtime stories. The campaign was run on Facebook with videos of the event sharing the unique experience. 330 editorial pieces were written about the event further emphasizing the earlier point made about generating hype and buzz around a brand. That’s a lot of free publicity! The firm extended this concept across the globe from North America to Europe and Australia with customers going crazy for the chance to win. This demand for this sort of experience further emphasises the appetite of consumers for experience, sometimes even more than the products they are purchasing. This emotional hedonistic reward is what builds connections between brands and consumers.

Future Considerations

Technology is growing at an exponential rate and companies all over the world are looking at the metaverse. “The metaverse can be defined as a simulated digital environment that uses augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and blockchain, along with concepts from social media, to create spaces for rich user interaction mimicking the real world.” 

This virtual world is in the progress of construction just now, it is possible to purchase virtual land and build virtual retail stores. Global brands are already creating stores where the possibilities for footfall in the future are massive and figures of 500000 visitors a month and the analytics available will let you quickly evaluate your virtual displays to see which one’s consumers prefer enabling you to quickly rebuild ineffective displays. The digital objects within this world are represented by digital art created as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that are bought and sold on the blockchain, this means that NFTs have ownership and value in their own right and property, retail and brands can make a lot of real money through the trading of NFTs. The social experience here is something that can be mind blowing for people, marketeers could schedule a virtual experience event like a DJ playing in the store which you could attend with your friends along with other shoppers from all over the world, that truly would be a cultural experience and something marketing departments need to start thinking about now to ensure all issues arising from that can be properly managed

These tokens will be massive in the advertising space in the future and as popularity grows creating your unique NFT will become more expensive. Coca-Cola have created and auctioned some NFTs for charity. Taking NFTs in to the metaverse can give marketers like Coca-Cola another avenue to engage customers in this virtual world that is surging in interest

Phygital is an approach that allows omnichannel marketing across the physical and digital dimension to give the consumers a seamless experience. The intention is to get the best of both worlds, whilst delivering unique highly personalised experiences. The benefit does not stop with the consumer there are opportunities for brands to integrate their digital and physical marketing achieving mor opportunities to sell their products. Take digital loyalty schemes as an example where scheme members have their digital loyalty app on their phone , when they are instore Wi-Fi beacons will recognise that and send personalised offers to their phone in real-time whilst in the shopping experience , the system will be able to determine what physical products you are looking at by position in the store and correlate with past buying history to provide personalised offers of things you are likely to want to purchase in turn for promotional loyalty points.

In the physical bricks and mortar stores they will increasingly be designed with customer experience in mind open spaces and sleek design. Luxury brands such as slowear spend a great deal of time during the pandemic planning store openings. Their recently opened store in Chicago was 1150 square feet with a sitting area for serving espresso and prosecco in efforts to make customers stay a while. Their concept is to build a direct relationship with the customer where experience is essential. Roberto Compagno the chief executive of the firm says he wants to test a different customer.

One thing is for sure nothing ever stands still in retail Marketing 😊